Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/269

 APP. NO. I.] GRAMMATICAL NOTICES. ONONDAGAS. 233 Nouns of inanimate objects have no prefixes and accept none. Numbers. — Plural is formed by addition of a syllable to the singular, shoh, nnie, ogu, varying according to termination or usage. Nouns compounded with the adjective ios, ' long,' change ios into es and add o for the plural. Garonta, ' a tree ' ; ga- rontesy ( a long tree ' ; garonteso, plural. In proper nouns compounded with certain numbers, the syllable age is added ; -unque, ' man '; ti-unquetage, ' two men.' Cases. — None except, 1. In words beginning with a vowel, s prefixed makes the vocative. Unque, ' man'; sunque, l thou man.' 2. Inseparable prepositions suffixed to nouns correspond to the ablative, dative, &c. Possessive pronouns are prefixed to nouns (and personal pronouns to verbs). Examples. giatattege, my brother, thiatattege, thy " hatattege, his " twattege, our brother, swatattege, your " hunatattege, their " Adjectives mostly coalesce with substantives and then may be conjugated as a verb ; eniage, ' hand ' ; ostwi, l little '; eniastwi, * a little hand ' ; wageniastwi, ' my hand is little ' ; saniastwi, ' thy hand is little ' ; honiastwi, * his hand is little.' They have also a present and future tense ; tiogaras, l dark ' ; tiogarasqua, ' it is dark ' ; njogarak, ' it will be dark.' But most of the adjectives which coalesce with substantives distinguish the masculine and feminine gender; unquetohekte, c a bad man ' ; hunquetahekte, ' he is a bad man'; gunquetahekte, * she is a bad creature.' The substantive is placed before the adjective when they do not coalesce. The adjective, when implying ' is ' or ' are,' goes before the substantive, and the adjective becomes a verb. vol. ii. 30